


where we're going

by twice_royal



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 03:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3712312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twice_royal/pseuds/twice_royal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s more than not talking, it’s that they don’t need to. It’s the cups of lemon ginger tea he wordlessly hands to her when it’s her turn to go off watch and sleep, it’s her sliding next to him on the quinjet after a difficult extraction and silently rubbing the places where his shoulders and back ache. It’s the pack of frozen peas he throws to her when they walk through the door of his apartment even though she’s been trying to act like her ribs aren't bruised to hell, and the ointment he finds on his nightstand when his fingers bleed. Ever since he had looked into her eyes and lowered his bow, this had been their agreement: <i> I’ll take care of you. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	where we're going

**Author's Note:**

> Written while listening to [Divinire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8SkX9CSJQo) a billion times.

i.

This is how it goes. 

The gods go home, and the two of them get into a fast car. The traffic is miserable, the clean up will take ages. This story is just starting to be spun, and their parts are over, at least for now.

“Where to?” she asks.

“Something far,” he says. He doesn’t remove his sunglasses.

There are two bags in the trunk as a result of the unspoken agreement they’d reached earlier this morning. They had earned some time off, Natasha felt, and their handler was dead. There was no one to stop them.

She reaches for her own sunglasses in the cup holder and turns the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life beneath them.

“The West Coast,” she muses. It’s more of a thought than a statement or question.

“All right,” he says.

 

ii. 

Someday she’ll finish where she left off when Coulson called. She’s got the intel she needed –was it only a few days ago? It's too good to go to waste, and someday she’ll have to go back to work. She will pick up where she’s left off, and it will feel good to do what she knows again. No more tricksters, no more aliens, no more magic. Just men and their ambitions and their desires. Her job will be simple again.

Clint’s path will be less easy.

 

iii.

She drives fast, and he falls asleep somewhere in one of the flyover states, Neither of them want to stop for a hotel, so when she’s too tired to continue she pulls over to the shoulder of the road in Iowa and shakes his shoulder. Clint’s a light sleeper and he barely starts when he wakes up. 

“My turn?” he asks, voice hoarse. She nods and hands him a Styrofoam cup filled to the brim with dark, pungent coffee, an oily film swimming on top. She bought it at a gas station twenty miles ago,  one of the extra large sizes for the truck drivers and insomniacs. It’s bitter and thick, the only way Clint knows how to drink it. She prefers sugar.

His mouth twitches when he sees the _GO HAWKEYES_ emblazoned on the side. It’s the best she can hope for.

They switch places, and Natasha falls asleep as they cross into Nevada with dawn breaking behind them.

 

iv. 

She never sleeps too deeply either. She can’t remember a time when she ever did – and she doesn’t mind. She’s suited to her job. 

They only stop for food and gas, and they don’t really talk. They’ve done this before: Bogota, Kiev, Johannesburg. She goes to a different place when they’re working; they both do. It’s why she’s always preferred him as her partner. It’s more than not talking, it’s that they don’t need to. It’s the cups of lemon ginger tea he wordlessly hands to her when it’s her turn to go off watch and sleep, it’s her sliding next to him on the quinjet after a difficult extraction and silently rubbing where his shoulders and back ache. It’s the pack of frozen peas he throws to her when they walk through the door of his apartment even though she’s been trying to act like her ribs aren't bruised to hell, and the ointment he finds on his nightstand when his fingers bleed. Ever since he had looked into her eyes and lowered his bow, this had been their agreement: _I’ll take care of you_.

She calls in a favor as they drive north along the coast and takes the wheel once they’re clear of Los Angeles. Clint doesn’t ask where they’re going, and she can’t tell if it’s because he trusts her or doesn’t care but she has a guess. His head can’t be a good place right now.

It’s another day before they reach the Klamath mountains to the very north of the state, brushing up against Oregon. They pull into a remote cabin nestled in a forest of old growth Lawson cypress trees at dusk. Giant silvery trunks reach straight into the sky and long shadows sprawl across the small clearing. The air is thin and clear here and when they shut the doors of the car, the sound echoes deep into the forest.

The cabin is painted a cheerful yellow inside. The floors are hardwood and there’s a painting of the cypresses covered in snow hanging over the small wooden table in the kitchen. Clint ambles past it and opens the refrigerator, which is humming comfortingly.  There’s fresh milk, eggs, cheese, deli meat and vegetables – someone’s been here. The pantry is even better stocked, with enough canned soups and fruits for weeks. He doesn’t ask why.

There’s two bedrooms and Clint goes straight to the smallest one and sets his bag down on the quilt. “Gonna take a shower,” he tells her, voice gravelly from lack of use. She nods and begins selecting cans from the pantry. She’s tired to the bone, but neither of them have eaten dinner.

But he still hasn’t come out of the shower when she’s finished her portion of soup, so she puts some foil over a bowl of the leftovers and puts it in the refrigerator. She brushes her teeth in the kitchen sink and splashes some water on her face before peeling off her cloths and curling up in the other bedroom.

She hears the shower shut off much, much later.

 

v.

“I remember my mother smelled like violets,” she tells him when he catches her closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in a flower market in Amsterdam. They are undercover, trailing a drug kingpin, but this isn’t part of the story and she knows that he can tell. 

When they get home he invites her to dinner at his apartment and buys them pizza. “My mom died in a car crash,” he tells her and takes a bite of his slice, chews and swallows. “And my old man, but I only cried for her. My brother never cried at all.”

She nods. “My parents died in a fire.”

It’d been a year since he brought her in. It takes two before they each have a picture of the other’s life, impressionistic but coherent enough for Natasha to understand why what they have is so special. They are both adrift. They both need someone, someone constant, someone familiar.

She’s never had a best friend before.

 

vi.

She sleeps lightly as always and wakes up just before dawn to the smell of frying bacon and coffee. The light hasn’t filtered through the forest yet, so everything is a ghostly gray as she pulls on a t shirt and SHIELD sweats and ventures into the kitchen.

 Clint looks up and nods when she sits at the table. She can tell from the creases under his eyes that he hasn’t slept.

“Coffee?” he asks her.

 “What have you been doing?” she asks him in return. It’s not an accusation.

He lifts a shoulder as he turns back to the stove. “Practiced.” His bow is stowed in its case but there’s evidence on the trunks of the cypresses outside.

“You should have slept.”

 “I don’t want to, Natasha.”

“You need to sleep.” 

He doesn't reply.

 

vii.

It’s summer in Buenos Aires. They are sticky with sweat and flooded with adrenaline. Natasha’s radio had been blown to pieces along with the building Clint had last seen her in.

She’d turned up ten minutes later in the empty office where he’d been stationed, hair streaked with dust and damp with sweat. “Hey, champ,” she’d said with half a smirk, leaning against the doorframe.

He’d shoved the table out of his way in his haste to get to her. She had returned his tight embrace with a kiss, full on the lips. He’d gone still.

“Nat…”

“Yes?” she asked, tilting her head and lifting an eyebrow.

He just stared at her.

“I’m quite sure about this, Clint,” she told him, with a small smile. She moved her hands to his belt buckle.

 He looked like she’d given him the world.

Afterwards, he runs a hand through her hair as she slides her bra back on.

 “You know where this is going, right?” he asks her quietly.  “Where we’re going?”

“Sure,” she says. “Do you?”

Neither of them say the word aloud, but it hangs heavy in the air between them.

 

viii.

“Love is for children,” she says.

 _I have always known where we were going_ , she thinks.

  

ix.

 “Don’t do this to me, Clint.”

“He was in my _head_. Natasha.” He runs a hand through his hair, agitated. She gets up and goes to him, takes both of his hands into hers.

“Stop,” she says as gently as possible. Natasha Romanoff’s life has not taught her to be gentle; he has. “This isn’t your fault.”

He won’t meet her eyes. “I almost killed you.”

“And here I am.” She touches his cheek.

He takes a shuddering breath and she finally knows what to say.

“I love you. “

He’s gone very still.

“ _I love you_ ,” she repeats, more insistently. She squeezes his hand with her own.  “This is where we’ve been going, Clint. I’ve always known. I’ve never wanted it to be anything else.”

He slowly exhales, lets her pull him closer.

_I love you. I love you. I love you…_

 

x.

This is how it goes.

They spend three weeks among the cypress trees. She takes him to bed.  He wakes up in cold sweats. She holds him close. 

Time heals, but it takes more than three weeks. She moves to his apartment, and he buys her a necklace. He makes her coffee and she makes him laugh. He tells her he loves her too. 

It takes time.

He wakes up from nightmares still, but so does she.  She rubs his back. He gives her warm mugs of lemon ginger tea. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he tells her one day as they’re eating breakfast, tapping his fingers on the table. They’re back in the city, both between missions. 

“Where to?” she asks, stirring sugar into her coffee.

“I dunno. Pick a direction, Nat. Doesn’t matter where we’re going.” His eyes are bright again.

“All right,” she agrees, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://www.twice-royal.tumblr.com).


End file.
